When I am zoomed in, I am often deleting selected nodes, repositioning remaining nodes, perhaps hitting a, f, occasionally. But my hand is most often around the delete key as I am working. Largely this is because of working from imported scans. But even when I am copying and pasting from Illy or CD, there is clean-up to do. Which for me mostly involves selecting nodes and deleting them and adjusting the remaining. It is fairly brain-dead work.

As well, even while I am drawing and adjusting inside of FC, which is often enough for long periods of time, I pretty much just use the mouse and the ol' noggin is supported by my left hand, elbow resting on the desk. It's monotonous work. The less I need to use the keyboard while drawing, the better.

Any key plus pressing the mouse wheel is less efficient than just pressing and holding the mouse wheel alone for panning. Pressing a key and rolling the mouse wheel is less efficient than pressing space + pressing and holding the left mouse button to move around a zoomed in glyph.

Yes, I have tried the routine as referenced in that thread. It produces as many nodes as copying the scan and pasting it. Pasting in vector from AI or CD works better. However, FC can still add unwanted nodes compared to the source.